Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories (Book & CD) (Hardcover)

by Alan Licht (Author), Jim O'Rourke (Introduction)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Over the past century, an art form has emerged that draws from the worlds of visual art and music. Sound art’s roots can be found in the experimental work of Italian Futurism, Dada, and later the Fluxus group and the pioneering efforts of the American composer and artist John Cage. In the wake of this groundbreaking work, sound art began to mature into a movement, and artists explored the interactive possibilities of sound and in turn created entirely new modes of experiencing and engaging with art. In this volume, the complete story of sound art is told by one of the country’s leading critics and scholars. The author traces the history of this form of art–highlighting the convergence of the indie world bands such as Sonic Youth with the art world–looking at the critical cross-pollination that has led to some of the most important and challenging art being produced today, including work by Christian Marclay, LaMonte Young, Janet Cardiff, Rodney Graham, and Laurie Anderson, among many others.

About the Author
Alan Licht is an American composer, guitarist, music writer, and a widely respected figure on the experimental music scene. He is not only responsible for important album reissues, but was a member of the cult classic NYC bands Love Child and Run On. He currently lives in New York City. Jim O’Rourke is an American musician and producer, and most widely known as a member of the rock band Sonic Youth. Considered an expert on experimental music, he has scored films for Werner Herzog and Olivier Assayas.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli (November 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847829693
• ISBN-13: 978-0847829699
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #490,397 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Poor Research, February 9, 2008

By	Andrew Deutsch "Andrew Deutsch - Magic If" (Alfred, New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is one of the worst books on sound art I have ever read. Its like reading an article in college newspaper. The research is incredibly week, it is as if Licht referred only to The Wire for his information. He makes many mistakes concerning John Cage (who made Sound Art in the early 60s and NOT just for "the stage") He takes cheap shots at Stockhausen of whom he seems to know NOTHING about (Cardew was wrong by the way). There is more to sound art than what can be found on Forcedexposure. This book is just awful, and I am afraid it will be used and referred to by teachers and curators in the future, which is a crying shame. And if you think I'm wrong, do some research on Sound Art and you will see that there are many many many books better than this one. After I bought it, I brought it right back and got a full refund I then used that money to order a Stockhausen CD. Please shop around before you buy this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars great documentation but take the history with a grain or two of salt, December 27, 2008

By	Seth Cluett "sound: theory - practice" (paris, france) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

as with most rizzoli books, this one seems to have had a budget and a research team for images. it has photo documentation of pieces i've only seen in rare gallery exhibition catalogs or in some case, only heard stories of. licht has included many works sorely missed in other sound art specific books (kahn, labelle, de la motte haber etc) and for that reason the book is well worth the cost when it comes out in soft cover. the writing however, as has been mentioned in other postings, is informal compared to most histories of the sort and in places, value judgements are made which make the text read as too personal to be trusted as a history as such and should have been caught by an editor. the history also has gaps, and suffers from the same problem of most sound art history writing: too much time spent on deciding what is included and excluded from the genre by definitions and not enough space devoted to close readings of individual works as exemplars of practice. this book paired with Brandon LaBelle's 'Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art' (low on documentation, but very theoretical) and perhaps the new 'Autumn Leaves: Sound and the Environment in Artistic Practice' produced by CRISAP and edited by Angus Carlyle (not available on amazon yet), would make a balanced sound art history.

11 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just don't call it music..., January 7, 2008

By	Jeff Abell (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

Years ago, a critic remarked that so-called Performance Art might have been called either Theater or Dance if those media were less uptight. That's how I feel about sound art - if Music were more open as a discipline, we wouldn't need to have a special category of stuff called sound art. We would simply recognize that for most of the 20th century, music and visual art blurred into each other, and the artistic use of so-called non-musical sounds became increasingly important. Today, in the age of the sample, where Foley artists and composers are often one and the same, and most undergrad art students have made at least one sound piece in their lives, it's useful to have Alan Licht's clearly written, well-illustrated, handsomely designed volume on how composers and artists have worked with sound in the 20th century. Licht hits all the significant movements (Futurism, Dada, Fluxus, etc.) that contributed to sound art, and does a good job of exploring the range of possibilities (from sound sculpture to sound installation to Christian Marclay's floor covered with vinyl records). While I might wish that some of the younger contemporary artists working with sound got more space, you can't have everything. A few years ago, the Pompidou Center in Paris did an exhibit called Son et Lumiére, and if you can find the catalog (and read French) it provides the history of the connection of music and visual art missing in Licht's book. But until that's available in an affordable English version, Licht's book is probably the best available on the topic. And the handy CD included means you can use your ears as well as your eyes to consider the topic, a welcome addition.